


Replacement

by Nyxwrites



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxwrites/pseuds/Nyxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the BAU, you are always a replacement and sometimes Reid wonders if he's a replacement in Aaron Hotchner's life as well.  (spoilers for up to episode 6.10)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replacement

In the BAU, you were always a replacement. Someone else left, someone else died, and you came in to fill in the empty spot. Reid hated it, watching JJ leave and Seaver replace her. Elle takes off, Emily comes in. Even Rossi, one of the originals, was a replacement for Gideon. It was like a ship. One hole and it needed to be plugged as fast as possible, lest the water come pouring in.

Reid wondered sometimes who he was a replacement for. He wondered if Hotch and Rossi knew, if he just reminded them of another person they had lost. Sometimes, even long after Gideon left, he’d look up to see Rossi leaving Gideon’s old office, and feel like Gideon should still be there. 

When he and Hotch--Aaron--first explored the idea of a romantic relationship, Reid was elated. Perhaps it was the “new love” phenomena, but Reid thought the entire world had taken on a shiny new feel. Morgan’s pranks weren’t as annoying. He played along with Garcia more easily, much to her delight. If Reid had ever disbelieved the poems his mother used to read him on the fact of love changing your perspective, he certainly believed them now. The first months were navigated with tender care, sidestepping their jobs, getting used to being in each other's private lives. Reid would take the subway home some nights, only to have Aaron turn up at the front door. They took Jack to the zoo, they dealt with the stares when they held hands, they even told their team. Somehow, they even managed to tiptoe their relationship through official, work type boundaries. It was everything either of them wanted, and it left them wondering when things would go wrong.

Reid thought he’d fit into a new niche in Aaron’s life, been something new, until he realized that even in his personal life he’d become a replacement. Just as at work, where he was likely a replacement for someone Aaron cared for, he became the same thing at home. 

Aaron rarely discussed her. The only photo of her on display was in Jack’s room. To a certain degree, Reid was grateful. He doubted sleeping with Aaron, especially when they got physical, would be possible with her watching. On the other hand, he was also concerned. Aaron was showing textbook signs of denial, not acknowledging what had happened by pushing away all reminders of it. At first, he worried, but the worry faded with time as he realized that Aaron was likely dealing with his loss in his own way.

The first time Reid really noticed he was a replacement was the anniversary of Haley’s death. Aaron and Jack had planned a picnic to the cemetery. To eat with Haley, and talk with her, they explained. When Aaron didn't invite him, Reid felt hurt. In retrospect, he realized that it was something only Aaron and Jack needed to do, but they had accepted him so readily into every other part of their life, why not this? Why not the grief of losing a loved one, when Reid was so willing to hold either of them, listen and comfort? 

As Reid sat in his apartment that day, watching the clouds outside, making shapes like a child, he found himself realizing what part of their lives Aaron and Jack hadn’t included him in. The one part Haley had also never been a part of. He was a replacement for every part of their lives that Haley had left. He was filling a gap, a gap that should never have been made in the first place.

He didn’t see Aaron for a few days, distancing himself as the realization that he wasn’t a unique part of Aaron’s life set in. Aaron had finally given up on waiting for Reid to contact him and turned up one day. He forced the conversation out of what was bothering Reid, reminding him he could do nothing if Reid wouldn’t open up. 

Reid was direct about what was bothering him, he always had been. He explained his replacement theory and watched a sad look mar Aaron’s features. “I never meant for you to be replacement for her Spencer,” he insisted, gathering the thinner man in his arms. He went on to say what he and Haley had was nothing like what his relationship with Reid was like. 

Haley had been his first, and at the time, his only. While that seemed like the absolute dream, to find the one person without having to explore and get hurt, it also took something away. Haley and Aaron grew up together, and into life with each other. They got so set in one form of life, a singular dream that once a wrench was thrown in to it, namely Aaron’s job, they couldn’t recover. They may have still loved each other, but their ideal path was being broken up after being set for so long, neither knew what to do. They went down two separate sides of the fork in the path that neither ever thought would split. Haley’s happened to end prematurely as neither of them expected.

He and Reid were different, he insisted again, and it wasn’t just that they were new lovers. They were also more willing to adapt to each other. Instead of growing together, they moved with each other, shifting and holding until they found something that fit. They explored everything: their interests, sexual preferences, even how they liked the lights on at night, with the curiosity of children. He hadn’t wanted Reid as a second Haley, he wanted Reid as Reid. He realized he was avoiding Haley, but he didn't want to burden Reid with his loss. 

They spoke for a while then, mostly Aaron recounting long forgotten memories of his wife and their life together. At some point, Reid was holding him and Aaron let the tears fall. He’d been forced to put himself together far too quickly after her death, for Jack’s sake. Now, he was happy to have someone he trusted to see past his stoic mask to what he truly felt. Reid held him until he fell asleep on Reid’s bed, head cushioned on Reid’s chest and the tears drying in a cool line on his cheekbones. 

Reid watched the sleeping body in front him, and thought. Maybe he was a replacement at the BAU, maybe he was a replacement for Aaron, but he would never be the perfect replacement. He wasn’t his predecessor, he was his own person and he brought that to everything he did. It was a nice sentiment, he mused, brushing Aaron’s hair with his fingers. Perhaps he should leave a note to whoever succeeds him at the BAU, remind them to bring themselves to the job, the position isn’t a specific frame in which one has to fit. As for his successor as Aaron’s partner... well that was never going to happen, so why bother thinking about it?

**Author's Note:**

> I, as you may guess, do not own criminal minds. This is my first time writing these two and this project has been in the works for a little while. Special thanks to dftba22 on tumblr for betaing. 
> 
> Thank you for reading,
> 
> ~Nyx


End file.
